


Lance Makes a Space Sandwich

by ArcaneAdagio



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, OG Garrison Squad, Peanut Butter and Jelly, also they almost die, just lance doing his best to make a sandwich
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 07:10:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10552168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcaneAdagio/pseuds/ArcaneAdagio
Summary: Lance goes through an galaxy space quest to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, dragging along an unwilling Hunk and Pidge. Will they be able to make their sandwich? Can they survive? Will Lance stop making terrible guns and finger gunning at the same time? Will they learn about the power of friendship? (Spoilers: the answer to the last two questions are 'no.')





	

**8:32 PM, SST (STANDARD SPACE TIME)**

“I blame you for this. All of it.” Pidge said.

Lance grunted as he tried to pull himself off of the unidentifiable sticky substance. A giant spider creature, if spiders had, like, thirty legs instead of eight, stomped towards Hunk, Pidge, and Lance, all trapped in its web. With each step, a heavy thud echoed through the area.

“Okay,” Lance pulled again, “to be fair, I didn’t know about the spiders. If I did, we wouldn’t have come here.”

“If we survive this, it better be the best peanut butter of my _life,_ Lance.” Pidge said. Next to her was an empty space tupperware container _(like a regular tupperware container, but in space)_.

“Yeah, _if.”_ Hunk added, fruitlessly tugging at his leg.

The spider let out a guttural screech, opening its three mouths and glaring at the three paladins with all twelve of its beady, purple, _bloodthirsty_ eyes.

Lance took the time to remember how they had gotten in this situation.

* * *

**8:37 PM, SST (STANDARD SPACE TIME)**

Lance was starving.

Okay, not _literally._ Lance and the rest of the Paladins had been eating well ever since they discovered the Blue Lion, but he was hungry for something that _wasn’t_ space goo. Hunk was a great chef, Coran less so, but a man could only live on unidentifiable space foods for so long.

Lance needed something good. Like a hot pocket. Or one of those strawberries candies that old lady Alves gave away whenever Lance stopped by her house. _Or bagel bites. I could really go for some bagel bites. Wait, did I leave those bagel bites in the Garrison microwave? If Nakiryowa from cargo stole them again, I’m gonna be_ **_so_ ** _pissed when we get back._

But the best food of them all would be his dad’s rice pudding, _aka,_ the best dessert in the universe. Anyone who had eaten it could confirm.

Lance’s stomach growled.

Well, it would probably be impossible to get any of those now, unless Lance’s dad decided to catapult himself into space with the ingredients for rice pudding. **_Or_ ** _if Nakiryowa would've stopped being such a jerk and admit they stole my bagel bites. Could've brought them here if they hadn't._

No, Lance didn’t have the ingredients for bagel bites or rice putting, let alone the cooking skills. Lance’s culinary skills extended to heating up leftovers and making pasta. He needed something simple. Something with space equivalents, hopefully.

Like a sandwich.

_Yeah, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich._

Lance shoved his hands in his pockets, whistling as he made his way into the kitchen. _There’s_ **_probably_ ** _some stuff that’s like peanut butter and jelly in there, right?_

Coran was in the kitchen, humming as he dusted off the counters. _Why_ he needed to clean in a high-tech castle that _should_ be equipped with self-cleaning technology was beyond Lance, but Coran had conveniently deflected all of Lance’s questions by entering a history lesson on the history of Altean technology. Five hours later Lance had learned the exact breakfast habits of Coran’s great-uncle, father, grandmother, cousins, and the former treasurer of Altea.

Lance had given up after that.

“Hey, Coran, do you have any bread here? I’m trying to make a sandwich.”

Coran turned around, raising an eyebrow. “Bread? What’s that?”

Lance blinked. “This is a space thing, isn’t it.” He paused, searching for the right words. “Okay... do you have _space_ bread?”

“Unfortunately, adding “space” in front of a noun isn’t going to make me understand what you are talking about.”

“Okay, but it worth a shot. What _do_ you use to make sandwiches?” Lance looked around the kitchen.

“Well, depends on the sandwich.” Coran said, stroking his mustache, “But the basic component is daerb,” Coran held up his hands like he was imitating the two pieces of space bread, “You take two slices of daerb and put other foods inside it!”

“Wait. ‘ _Daerb?’”_ Lance and Coran looked around. Outside the door stood Pidge. They held a laptop under her arm, adjusting her glasses with the other, “Isn’t daerb just bread spelled backwards?”

Coran and Lance blinked.

“So… do you have daerb here?” Lance asked, turning back to Coran.

Pidge sighed, “What are you doing now, Lance?”

“Hey, I’m just trying to make a space sandwich!” Lance flung his hands up in the air, “Is that _space_ illegal? Am I going to _space_ jail for that?”

“Why do you keep adding ‘space’ in front of everything?” Pidge asked.

“Because we’re in space?” Lance said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, “so do we have space bread here?”

Coran shook his head sadly, “I’m afraid not. I checked, and there isn’t any daerb in the kitchen.”

Lance dropped his head, _“Great._ Is there, I dunno, some kind of space store where we can pick some up?”

“I’m afraid all of your “space stores” were destroyed thousands of years ago by the Galra. You _could_ make some, if we find the right ingredients. There were quite a few planets with all of the components for your sandwich.”

“Great! Where are they?” Lance said, eyes lighting up at the prospect of space bread.

“Is a sandwich _really_ worth an interplanetary fetch quest?”

“Pidge,” Lance said, turning to face them. Pidge stared back, completely unamused. “I am getting that space sandwich if it _kills_ me.”

Pidge blinked, adjusting her glasses again. “That’s great, Lance. You do you.”

Lance ignored Pidge’s remark, counting off the ingredients with his fingers. “Okay, so for this space sandwich, we need daerb, peanut butter, and jelly.”

“We don’t have peanut butter, either.” Coran added.

“How is it that English and Altean have the word ‘peanut butter’ in common, but not _bread?”_ Pidge asked. They placed her laptop on the counter, leaning down to pull open a drawer, “Anyway, I think I saw some jam in here a few days ago, but I could be wrong.”

Lance immediately stopped in his tracks, turning around. _Wait._

_Jam._

_In space._

A grin spread across his face, “Jam, you say?”

“Yeah?” Pidge said, absorbed in her jam search.

_Pause._

Pidge went still, “No.”

“So would you say that it’s..”

“Lance, I swear, if you say what I think you’re going to say -”

 _“Space_ jam?”

Pidge grabbed the space jam from the inside of the drawer, hurling it at Lance without the slightest hint of hesitation.

The space jam collided with Lance’s face, hurtling at such speed it knocked Lance onto the floor. The last thing Lance saw before blacking out was Coran’s startled expression and an remorseless Pidge.

“...Come on and slam.” Lance heard himself say, before the world went dark.

* * *

**3:45 PM, SPACE TIME**

“--t, I think he’s waking up!”

Lance lay on the floor, blinking at the sudden light, “Wh… what happened?”

_Sandwich._

_Daerb._

_Pidge._

_Space jam._

“Hey, you okay? Pidge said they threw this at you _pretty_ hard.” Lance’s vision cleared, revealing Hunk crouched over Lance, concerned.

 _Oh, Hunk, you beautiful man, you._ Hunk squatted in front of Lance, holding a space jar _(like a regular jar, but in space)_ of space jam.

“You deserved that.” Pidge said. They squatted on the floor, face void of any regret about knocking Lance out for a solid five hours. Lance pushed himself off the floor, adjusting into a sitting position.

“Worth it.” He said, looking around the kitchen.

“Yeah, that’s what I was gonna ask about,” Hunk said, “what _exactly_ did you do that made Pidge throw jam at you?”

“...Space jam.” Lance said, staring at said space jam.

Hunk stared at Lance, “Okay, yeah, I can see why.”

“It was _funny!”_ Lance protested, throwing his arms up.

“It really wasn’t.” Pidge added. They held up a black, rectangular space container, “I got this, though.”

Lance blinked, picking the container out of Pidge’s hands, “What is it?”

“Daerb. It was in one of the cryostasis chambers - it’s probably like, 10,000 years old, but it was frozen, so it’s probably good.”

“Aw, you really _do_ care.”

Pidge snorted, _“Hah!_ No. Keith found it there. He came in here after you passed out, and when I told him he left, and came back like, an hour later with the daerb.”

“Wait, really? _Keith_ did that?” Hunk said, as Lance pulled out the daerb from the space container. It was identical to bread, apart from the fact it was bright blue.

Pidge nodded. “Yep. He also took some photos of Lance passed out on the ground, so, you know, equivalent exchange.”

Lance pouted. “Well, at least we’re two thirds of the way to my PB&J. Also, Pidge, can you hack into Keith’s phone and delete those photos?”

“Even if I _did_ want to waste my time like that, you know I’d just copy the photos and use them as blackmail, right?”

“Hang on, you’re making peanut butter and jelly?” Hunk said, staring at the daerb. “I only got here like, thirty minutes ago. Are you _sure_ you’re gonna eat _that?”_ He pointed to the loaf, skeptical.

Lance shrugged., “Yeah man, it’s, like, space bread.”

“It kind of looks... radioactive.” Hunk said, raising an eyebrow.

“Listen, I’m just working with what I’ve got here, so we can’t be picky about our space PB&J.” Lance said, exasperated.

"Why do you even want PB&J?" Pidge asked, "That stuff is gross."

Lance gasped, placing his hand above his chest in offense, _“Wow,_ okay. If that’s how you’re going to treat team PB&J -”

“When did we become a team?” Hunk asked.

“ - then _maybe_ you should leave -” Lance continued.

Pidge picked up her laptop, “I was planning to.”

“ - After all, there’s no _‘I’_ in peanut butter and jelly.” Lance finished.

“There’s no _‘we’_ in peanut butter, either.” Pidge added.

“ _We_ anut butter.” Hunk mumbled.

Pidge wrinkled her nose. “That sounds like ‘we nut,’ Hunk.”

Lance continued despite the side conversation. “- but _I believe_ that _we_ can find the peanut - wait, where did Coran go?”

“He went to go look up for where you could find your space peanut butter.” Hunk said. “Said something about a planet that grew peanut butter out of like… pods?” He shrugged. He leaned over, picking up the daerb. “This thing _seriously_ looks radioactive.”

Lance grabbed Hunk by the arm, striking a pose. Pidge sighed, adjusting her glasses. They turned around, walking out the door.

“Pidge, there’s gonna be _peanut butter!_ I thought you liked peanut butter!” Lance said to Pidge, pulling Hunk closer. Hunk scrambled to balance the daerb in his hands.

Pidge paused. “Well, I like peanut butter, and I like jelly, but peanut butter _and_ jelly is gross. It’s like mixing oil and water, except people seem to think it’s good.”

Lance struggled to refrain from arguing. “Okay, but hear me out. You help us get the space peanut butter, and you get to split it with us.” Lance gave his best charismatic grin, flashing a finger gun with his free hand. “What do you say?”

Pidge stared, completely apathetic for a solid minute. Lance refused to move, despite the increasing pain in his limbs from striking his heroic pose. Pidge, finally, shrugged her shoulders. “Fine, but if you taint my jam with peanut butter I _will_ throw you out the airlock.”

Lance whooped, breaking free from his heroic pose. “Yes! Let’s go ask Coran where this pod peanut butter is!”

 

* * *

**7:36 PM, STANDARD SPACE TIME**

The pod peanut butter, as it turned out, was about an hour’s flight from the Castle’s current location, on a tiny, uninhabited planet known as Sebowa. Unfortunately, the one hour had quickly turned into four, once Galra ships tracked Coran’s old transport ship that Hunk had borrowed. Allura had forbidden any of the paladins from taking their lions out, worried the Galra would use the opportunity to steal them before they could form Voltron.

Well, unfortunately for Lance, the Galra were dead-set on capturing the three pilots, lions or not.

The three of them had barely escaped the final laser, watching as the Galra ship crashed into a slow-moving asteroid at incredible speeds. The pieces of fiery former ship and asteroid hurtled towards the ship. Lance grabbed onto the wheel, the three screaming as they charged through the planet’s atmosphere.

Before the ship could crash into the red, shimmery surface of the planet, Lance jerked up the wheel, slamming his foot onto the break. The ship began to slow its plummet to the ground seconds before they crashed.

For the second time that day, third if you counted waking up in the morning, Lance awoke.

It took him all of five seconds to realize that:

  1. He was alive! Good.
  2. He was upside-down, stuck in a black, tree-like thing. Bad.
  3. Hunk and Pidge were also hanging close by, completely unconscious. Hunk was, unlike the other two, hanging right-side up. All that kept Pidge from falling was one of their legs, stuck in-between a thick tangle of branch-like objects. Mostly bad, but kind of good because the two looked hilarious.



Lance kicked the tree-thing, struggling to get free. “Hey, guys! Wake up!” He swung upwards, grabbing a branch and sitting upright.

Hunk blinked, shaking his head blearily. “Wh -” His eyes shot open and Hunk scrambled to grab a steady branch. “Oh, man - what happened?!”

“We crashed.” Lance said.

 _“Really?_ I hadn’t noticed.” Pidge said, grunting as they pulled themselves upright. “I thought we were just taking a convenient nap.”

“Hey, Hunk asked!” Lance protested. He pulled himself upright like Pidge, surveying the land. He squinted at the horizon, gazing on the cold, sun-baked redlands in front of him. “Okay, so, from what I’ve gathered… this is bad.”

“Lance, what’s _actually_ there?” Hunk asked.

“Looks like patches of snow in the distance, but there are a bunch of these cluster things as well.” Lance said, gesturing to the tree the three were trapped in.

“And the ships?” Pidge asked.

“I think I can see them next to the snow.” Lance narrowed his eyes, “Hey, and I think those are the pod things! They’re on the way to the ship!” He turned excitedly to Hunk. “Do you still have the space container?”

“It’s literally just a normal tupperware container, but yeah.” Hunk said, reaching into his bag and pulling out the space container, which, Lance would protest, was _not_ the same. It was an opaque shade of black, not the translucent and blue color of Earth tupperware. A _very_ important distinction.

Pidge examined the container. “Are you sure? Coran did mention that they had some kind of ‘special features’ or something.”

“Coran says a lot of things I don’t really get. Like that whole thing about all of the different Altean methods of drinking juice.” Hunk said.

Lance hoisted himself from the branches, striking another heroic pose. “Enough talking, let’s go get that peanut butter!”

Hunk stared. “Dude, you’re gonna fall.”

* * *

**7:46 PM, STANDARD SPACE TIME**

The pod and ship was surrounded by snow.

The trio stood at the edge of the frozen wasteland the three were about to trek through, Hunk and Lance gazing apprehensively towards them.

Lance shivered, clutching onto his jacket for warmth. Pidge rolled her eyes, pushing forward. “Come on, let’s get this space peanut butter.”

“C-come on, it’s freezing here!” Lance said, teeth chattering. “Give me a s-second to warm up!”

“You had the whole walk over to ‘warm up.’” Pidge said. She turned to Hunk, “You ready?”

Hunk was also shivering.

“W-wait, I’ve g-got an idea!” Lance turned to Hunk. “Huddle for warmth!”

“Yes!” Hunk said, holding his arms out for the Tactical Friendship Formation #2: Warmth. _(a.k.a., standing really close to each other and shuffling everywhere together.)_

Bundled together for maximum warmth, Lance and Hunk made their way across the tundra.

“Pidge, c’mon, you gotta get in on this friendship formation.” Lance said, “I’ve never been warmer in my _life.”_

“I’ll pass, thanks.” Pidge responded. “Plus, it kind of looks like you two are a mutated penguin.”

“A really _warm_ mutated penguin, yeah.” Hunk responded. “Anyway, I was thinking about this snow… it’s kind of weird, right?”

“I wouldn’t really know, man. I’ve only seen snow, like, once?” Lance shrugged as best as he could while in Tactical Friendship Formation #2.

“Well, yeah, me too, but I’ve seen enough teen movies to know that snow is kind of… sticky?”

Pidge stopped in her tracks, “Sticky?”

“Like, it’s not like a spiderweb or anything, but usually snow sticks to shoes, right?”

“Under the right situations, yeah?” Pidge asked.

“But this stuff isn’t sticking at all. It’s just… cold. We’re basically walking on cold, white dirt.”

Pidge looked down, “Yeah, that is pretty weird. Do you think it’s because it’s on another planet?” She asked, lifting her leg up to check her shoes.

“Maybe? But what kind of climate would make snow like _dirt?”_

A rumble echoed through the ground.

_Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk._

"Hey, do you guys hear that?" Pidge asked.

_Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk._

Like a scene from a bad action comedy movie, the trio looked backwards, eyes simultaneously widening in horror as multi-legged monstrosity clamored towards them. The sounds of the beast’s many others legs followed, each sending a shake throughout the ground.

 _“ **Run!** ” _ Pidge cried, and the trio took off. The beast roared, gaining speed at the sight of possible prey. It reared its head backwards, spitting out a burst of an unidentifiable liquid towards them. The beast roared again, causing the three two collapse onto the ground.

The liquid splashed the three and all over the surrounding area, and Lance felt the uncomfortable sensation of wearing wet socks, but _all over his body._

“What the heck is this stuff?” Lance yelled.

But before anyone could answer, the three suddenly fell to the ground, feet stuck to what they had previously assumed was snow.

_Ah. That’s what it is._

The ground below, which originally had the firmness of dry soil, when covered in the unidentifiable liquid, had become sticky and impossible to move in.

_Like quicksand, but, like, movie quicksand. Not real quicksand._

Lance struggled against it, trying to free his left arm. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hunk’s backpack open and the space tupperware fall out.

“I blame you for this. All of it.” Pidge said.

Lance grunted. “Okay, to be fair, I didn’t know about the spiders. If I did, we wouldn’t have come here.”

The space tupperware container rolled closer to Pidge, unaffected by the ground.

_Both of the objects need to be covered in that liquid._

“If we survive this, it better be the best peanut butter of my _life,_ Lance.” Pidge’s hand nudged the space tupperware.

“Yeah, _if.”_ Hunk said. With his one free hand he tugged at his leg.

The spider howled, all of its legs thudding against the ground.

“Guys!” Lance shouted, “the space tupperware!”

“What about it? Lance, I know you like peanut butter, but now isn’t _really_ the time-” Pidge began.

“No! It’s not affected by the stickiness! _Both_ of the things need to be covered in it! Hunk, how much of that stuff did you get on you?

“Just my leg!”

“What do you have in your bag?”

“...A wrench?” Hunk said, questioningly. “But why -”

“Good enough!” Lance said. “Use your free hand to break the web! Pidge?”

“It got all over my arms, I don’t think I can get my bayard-”

“Got it! I’ve still got one arm,” Lance said, “Pidge, try and get the space tupperware over here!”

“What? How is tupperware going to help!”

“Just trust me!” Lance yelled back.

Pidge kicked the space container over to Lance. Lance caught it between his legs, pulling the lid open with his right hand. Shoving the container into the ground, Lance dug through the webs and pulled his hand free. He wrenched himself off the ground, but _both his legs were still stuck._

_Okay, shit? Think Lance, think. You’ve got a space tupperware container filled with webs, your clothes, two free hands, and a giant rampaging space spider charging towards you._

Hunk had successfully removed himself from the web, but the spider was rapidly drawing closer, the tremors increasing in frequency and size.

“Okay, Hunk, free me and Pidge!”

“We don’t think we have enough time for that!”

Lance cursed under his breath. _Why do I have to be the plan guy? I’m never the plan guy, I can’t do stuff like that!_

Lance swiveled his head around, racking his brain for a solution.

His eyes fell on his clothes.

“I’m gonna take off my pants!”

 _“What?!”_ Both Hunk and Pidge yelled.

“Just pull Pidge out of there and we can make a break for it!” Lance began to wriggle out of his jeans, leaving him in his boxer shorts. He kicked off his shoes and wrangled free of the webs.

Hunk grabbed Pidge, pulling her from the ground.

“Okay, now let’s _go!”_ Lance yelled.

Lance, pantless and sholess, with one arm still holding onto the space tupperware, and Hunk, with a battered pair of pants and holding Pidge in his arms, streaked across the ground towards the ship and space peanut butter pod.

It was at this moment, filled with adrenaline and running at speeds Lance never thought he could run, that Lance noticed a very important detail about the space tupperware.

Underneath the black bottom were three buttons.

One of these buttons, Lance noticed, was a strikingly bright shade of red.

_So that’s what he meant by special features._

“Everyone, watch out!” Lance slammed his fist against the button. The container began to beep, and Lance chucked it towards the beast not five meters away.

_BOOM!_

The beast howled in pain, collapsing to the ground. It began to spit weakly towards the three, but it only succeeded in covering its own legs in the liquid (stickquid, Lance had elected to call it) before finally, _finally_ falling silent.

“Hah!” Lance yelled, pointing at the beast. “That’s what you get for messing with the Paladins of Voltron!”

Hunk, panting, finally released Pidge. “There are only… three paladins… here… I don’t think it really qualifies… as Voltron…”

“Team PB&J!” Lance corrected.

“We are not calling ourselves that.” Hunk said.

“The OG Space Squad!”

“They’re... just… getting _worse.”_ Pidge heaved. After a minute, Pidge breathed and stood upright. “Okay, so… that thing is dead now. Can we get the peanut butter?”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t know what we’re gonna put it in. Lance kind of blew up the only container we had.” Hunk said.

“So would you say…” Lance flashed a grin, “we don’t have any… _space?”_

He was met with two unappreciative glares and a crude gesture from Pidge.

Lance flapped one hand, “Don’t worry, I’ve got it. We can put it in Hunk’s backpack.”

“Ew, what? No! I _use_ that!”

“We came all this way - I gave up my pants _and_ my shoes for this stuff!”

“That was _your_ choice, not mine.”

“All for putting it in Hunk’s bag, say ‘aye,’” Lance said, sticking his hand in the air.

Pidge’s hand shot up.

“Pidge, come on!”

“I’m not leaving without that peanut butter, Hunk.”

Hunk groaned, opening up his backpack. _“Fine._ But next time, we bring two containers or else we’re using Lance’s jacket.”

Lance and Pidge cheered.

* * *

  **9:20 PM, STANDARD SPACE TIME**

As the ship pulled into the docking station, the rest of Team Voltron was already waiting for them. Shiro stood, confused yet somehow confident, his arms crossed. Keith stood, arms on his waist, watching with one eyebrow raised as the trio exited the ship.

Allura placed her hands on her hips, staring directly at them. Her eyebrows were furrowed and her eyes narrowed. “You three are in _big_ trouble - losing communications, not informing me of _where_ you were going, and not-” Allura stared. “Lance, where did you pants go?”

Lance shrugged. “A spider ate them.”

“...A _spider?”_ Keith echoed questioningly.

Pidge sighed. “It’s a long story.”

**Author's Note:**

> why did i write this? i dunno. 
> 
> hope you enjoyed  
> especially you, khloe. this fic is a callout from me to you. pb&j sucks.


End file.
